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PETER LUCAS: Patrick will do no worse than other Mass. also-rans

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
03/04/2014 06:31:17 AM EST

By Peter Lucas

We've got to stop people from Massachusetts running for president.

Because every time they do, they lose. It is getting embarrassing, and it is giving the state a bad name -- like loser capital of the world. What is it with this place? How is it that our professional sports teams (except today's Boston Celtics) win while all our professional politicians lose?

The list of Massachusetts failed presidential candidates is long, and getting longer. It includes Massachusetts governors, former governors, U.S. senators, former U.S. senators, and everybody else in the Bay State who now thinks -- with good reason -- that they can run the country better than the current bunch of idiots.

Our latest presidential hopeful is our frequently absent governor, Deval Patrick, who has turned himself into his own version of television's Rick Steves of European travel fame. Patrick has been on the road so much that he has even adopted Steves' slogan of "Keep on Traveling."

At the rate the governor is racking up the frequent flier miles, he will not only top Steves in the number of countries visited but will threaten John Kerry's record-breaking travel log as well. But don't expect Patrick to open up a travel agency in between the time he leaves office and when he runs for president. He has bigger fish to fry.

The ever modest Patrick, who will leave the governor's office at the end of the year, is now openly talking about running for president, if his wife, Diane, approves, and after he makes a killing in the business world.

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It does not hurt when you are looking for a high-paying job in the international business community -- as Patrick is -- to be a governor who is friendly with the president and who is also thinking of running for president. Surely that increases your market value and improves your "brand," as the political gurus say.

How do you do this? You first set up a political action committee as you leave office, as Patrick has done, to raise money to keep your "brand" alive during the years you are out of office making money. This allows you to continue traveling the country and the world on somebody's else's dime.

Then you go to a governors' conference in Washington and make sure you get a friendly reporter to ask you if you are running for president. And you say, sure, maybe, some day, if my wife lets me. This makes national news and you become a player, and people whisper that maybe you, if not a candidate in 2020, could become Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.

Stranger things have happened. A stranger thing did happen when the terribly inexperienced Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Now everybody thinks he or she can become president.

A candidate always believes he can do better than the person holding the job, whether it be president or county commissioner. Patrick is no different. But he has to be careful. He comes from Massachusetts, where no political leader has been elected president since Jack Kennedy in 1960. And it has not been from the lack of trying.

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy looked upon President Jimmy Carter with disdain, and challenged him for the presidential nomination in 1980. He overestimated himself and underestimated Carter. Carter beat him.

Gov. Mike Dukakis thought he could run a better campaign for president than Ted Kennedy had done. And in many ways he did, winning the Democrat Party nomination in 1988. He was beaten by then Vice President George H.W. Bush after Dukakis blew a 19-point lead in the polls.

The late U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas thought he would have made a better president than Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992, when Tsongas ran for the job. Maybe he would have, but Clinton beat him in the primaries, forcing Tsongas out of the race.

Then U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry thought he would be a better president than all of them combined when he ran in 2004. He emerged from a testy Democrat primary and won the party nomination. But incumbent President George W. Bush beat him.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, the sole Republican in the group, saw a clear path to the White House in 2012 as incumbent President Barack Obama stumbled around the White House after failing to heal the earth and stem the tides. But the resourceful Obama proved to be the better campaigner and sent Romney packing.

What did all these losers have in common? They all came from Massachusetts.

Welcome to the club, Deval. Maybe opening a travel agency is not such a bad idea.

Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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